The Role of Students’ Perceptions of Educators’ Communication Accommodative Behaviors in Classrooms in China

In China, educators are encouraged by administrators to assume instructional and language strategies to align with their students’ needs so as to enhance classroom communicative effectiveness, with students’ perceptions of teachers’ behavior being a salient factor in this process. This study, based on communication accommodation theory, examines how students’ perceptions of teachers’ behaviors influence reports of positive classroom outcomes. Using structural equation modeling, we analyzed responses from a sample of 422 university students in Shanghai. The results showed that the students’ perceptions of teachers’ communication accommodation behaviors, such as verbal and nonverbal tactics, teaching content, and emotional support behaviors, significantly and positively impacted students’ learning effectiveness, teacher credibility, and communication satisfaction. Furthermore, teacher credibility partially mediated the relationship between perceptions of accommodation and learner effectiveness. The findings offer practical insights for educators by suggesting that strategic adaptions of communication accommodations behaviors can promote students’ learning outcomes.